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The non-blogging can be explained, I swear. I have spent the last two days paying with my sanity and composure for being in denial in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Toys R Us is NOT a place for timid souls in the week leading up to Christmas, as I discovered recently– too recently for me to have forgotten the high-pitch cacophony of, “this Daddy! Mommy! I want this I want this I want THIIIIIIS!!!”.

But I have a reasonable sense of humour, so I managed to float through the place in a kind of slightly bewildered haze with a beatific smile frozen on my face. The bewilderment came from the sheer number of choices… But! I really must express my profound dissatisfaction with all this cotton-woolly over-cautiousness. Where are all the chemistry sets of old, with real chemicals and things that can go bang if you mixed it up right? Or the little paper-wrapped pellets filled with sand and gunpowder that went SNAP! when you threw them on the ground?

Everything is so tame these days.

I also managed to elbow my way through each aisle, then keep my spirits up in the Very Long Queue To Freedom Beyond the Cashiers, because I am easily amused. I have never before seen a bunch of parents so frazzled and wild-eyed.

I should say that I’m grateful I didn’t have my own screaming brat to deal with, but I was a lot more grateful that I could witness this pre-Christmas phenomenon from the outside with an easily-tickled sense of humour.

This was really not a very easy task. I’m not good at picking out blogs, articles or websites to share, partly because my interests are very wide and varying, and partly because I don’t spend a lot of time just browsing randomly. My use of the internet is very targeted. But there are some websites I like going to when I need empathy, or a laugh, or something to soothe a miserable day.

Leunig is an Australian cartoonist, poet, artist… whose work is regularly published in the mainstream press. His poetry and cartoons are sweet, funny, poignant in a gentle way, and environmentally-, politically- and resource-conscious. There is a softness and inherent soothing kindness in his work that I just love, and also a childlike innocence.

Everyone probably knows about this one by now. I like the direct, simple way it manages to convey otherwise very complex subjects. I empathised deeply with several posts. It does what many writers and journalists have tried to do with mixed success– which was to make difficult-to-discuss and hard-to-understand experiences, such as depression, much easier to access and to empathise with. It is a superb example of communications done right to get a point across. The style reminds me of the book I Had A Black Dog by Matthew Johnstone.

Ok, I know, I know, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and never will be, because humour is like that. That’s one thing I just love about all our senses of humour– it’s all so different. Because when you find your soulmate, chances are, a good part of it will be because of matching senses of humour. It’s like a summary of all our experiences, our upbringing, culture and personality, our exposure to the world and all we’ve read and absorbed, a testament to our core attitudes and view of life. What we laugh at is like a stripped-down Myers-Briggs score.

I’m grateful for a sense of humour. I’m relieved to have an open, easily-tickled sense of humour, and for a loud, hearty laugh.

I’m sure I’ve read research somewhere that shows that people who laugh more live longer, because laughing does feel so very, very good. I think a person can bounce from most of life’s unpleasant curveballs as long as they hang on tight to their sense of humour. It’s how you keep perspective when you can’t physically move away to get some distance, when you must stay still, suck it up and deal with it. Humour is a lifeboat when it’s yours, and a thrown life-ring when it’s someone else’s. It’s not the umbrella, but the thing that makes you laugh and dance in the rain.

And just because I find Benedict Cumberbatch rather sexy, and I giggled my way through this: